


Paper Lions

by Tesmi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Autistic Bokuto Koutarou, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slurs, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tesmi/pseuds/Tesmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of firsts, and their subsequent lasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A First of Hand Holding

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter will be just about Kuroo and will contain homophobic slurs and violence. Kuroken occurs.  
> Please listen to the song that's linked to get a feel for the chapter.

_Keep in mind the last time_

_but don't ignore the first_

_Raise your eyes_

_just go again_

_There will be a next time_

[-October](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2OZjmVp7UA)

\---

The first time Tetsurou ever got a crush, he was six years old and his mom had introduced him a little girl who was the daughter of an associate at his mother's work. She had short brown hair that curled at the end, and eyes the color of deep silver satin. She introduced herself as Kaede and gave a tiny bow of her head. Tetsurou bent so low to the ground his hair nearly touched it; she had laughed and called him cute, and that was it. He was smitten.

Kaede liked jump rope and got chalk all over her hands when they drew on the street outside together. Her favorite color was green and she said that Tetsurou's smile reminded her of the chesire cat- Tetsurou wasn't familiar with the tale, so they stayed up late into the night while she read Alice in Wonderland to him, until Kaede's mom came to yell at them to get to sleep.

Kaede was Tetsurou's first at many things. First and foremost, she was his first friend; she was the first person to take his pudgy hand in hers and hold it so tightly he thought his fingers might break. She was the first one to press rosy lips onto his own bitten, chapped ones, a kiss that was dry and soft and fleeting and perfect. As perfect as a kiss could be for a six year old.

The day that Tetsurou kissed Kaede under the tree in his backyard was the day that her father went to jail for arson, a story that he never heard and wouldn't have understood until he was older. All he knew was that it was the first time that he saw Kaede, who was stronger than the limbs of his old oak tree and braver than Tetsurou could ever hope to be, cry. It was the first time, and the last.

Kaede moved away in the following week. He never heard from her again.

\---

Tetsurou's parents held hands a lot. They were a young couple, who got married directly out of high school and never quite stepped out of their honeymoon stage. Tetsurou was often enamored by the way his parents would lace fingers when they saw on the couch together, or press kisses to eachother's cheeks at random intervals during the day. It reminded him of the place where Kaede had left a wet, sloppy smooch right on the corner of his mouth. The skin still burned where she'd kissed when he imagined hard enough.

He wanted to hold hands with someone, too. Someone who was important to him like his mom was to his dad. He lay in bed some nights and thought about Kaede and wondered why he didn't miss her as much as he thought that he should.

Tetsurou decided he would find another hand to hold.

\--

A boisterous and energetic child, Tetsurou had no problem with charming adults. They flocked to him and commented on how smart he was, how impressive his big vocabulary sounded, and my, what a handsome boy he would grow up to be. He preened under the positive attention, though his mother reminded him it was best to remain humble whenever he let it go to his head.

Other children were a different matter entirely. Tetsurou had friends... some friends. Acquaintances, he came to know them as. He liked the sound of the word but he didn't know if he was too keen on the concept. Why couldn't he get friends who showed up to his house to play and laughed with him like all the other children seemed to have? He tried hard to be someone's favorite, but no one ever seemed to want him as their first pick.

His mother assured him that he was her favorite, and while it didn't completely put his troubles to rest, it did assuage some of his wounded feelings.

And then came Kenma Kozume, a petite boy with long black hair and eyes like the ones on the stray tabby that came out to brush against the back of his legs sometimes when he walked into town. Tetsurou had mistaken him for a girl, at first- he thought that Kenma was exceptionally pretty and had the immediate desire to hold hands with him. This desire, to his surprise and confusion, didn't fade once he'd found out Kenma's gender.

Kenma was quiet and made Tetsurou work to get him to open up, but he found that it was well worth it in the end. His new friend was smart, though unlike Tetsurou, he was quiet about it. The air around him was unassuming and nothing about him really stuck out. He didn't like to play outside much, and he always kept his eyes down when he talked- but he listened to everything that Tetsurou had to say and made comments that would often take him by surprise.

Kenma wasn't just smart. He was so smart, and he was so good at playing game boy. Tetsurou could sit and watch him for hours, quietly hanging onto his shoulder and applauding him when he bested a particularly hard level. Although Kenma often told him to not be so loud, it was a nuisance, there was a tone in his voice that let Tetsurou know that he didn't mean it.

Tetsurou desperately wanted to hold hands with Kenma Kozume, but for the time being, he kept quiet about it.

\--

The first time Tetsurou lost Kenma was also the first time that they held hands.

It was a rainy day in the middle of April, the kind where the rain isn't heavy enough to a palpable presence, but one would surely have damp clothing if they stayed out in it for too long. The earth smelled like damp grass and moss and dirt, like earth, and Tetsurou inhaled deeply at every change that he got. The rainy seasons were the best, though Kenma would disagree with him. His friend was the type to stop at every uprooted worm that lay wriggling on the pavement and gently scoop it up into his hands, depositing it back onto the earth. It brought a smile to Tetsurou's face every time he thought about it.

Although Tetsurou was one year ahead of Kenma, they were lucky enough to be enrolled at the same school once they turned old enough to attend. Tetsurou was nine while Kenma was eight, and while the former was in a stage of long, gangly limbs and a cracking voice, the latter had yet to go through his growth spurt. He was still small, and Tetsurou liked to tease him that he always would be.

The rain hadn't stopped by the time the two of them had gotten out of school, so Tetsurou told Kenma to stick close to his side. Kenma, of course, had forgotten his umbrella, and he reacted to rain much like a cat who was terrified of water. Scrunching his face, bunching up his shoulders and using Tetsurou's body as a shield when the wind shifted.

They shuffled close together, walking awkwardly with the limited space under the thin veil overhead. Tetsurou had promised he would bring Kenma all the way to his house before he went home, though Kenma didn't seem placated by this- the look on his face said that he'd rather Tetsurou just stay with him for as long as possible, but Tetsurou knew better than to push the curfew his mother had set for him when school had began.

Because he was taller, Tetsurou held the umbrella, and Kenma held onto his arm, his eyes pointed towards the ground. Watching to make sure he didn't step on any earth worms or stray toads, Tetsurou thought to himself. Kenma had a habit of not watching where he was walking- either because he was too anxious to look ahead or because he was too enraptured in whatever handheld device he had brought with him that day. The days following the release of the DS was a miserable, lonely two weeks for Tetsurou.

Somewhere between stopping to rescue a long, icky looking worm, and chastising Kenma for his untied shoelaces, the rain began to pick up speed. It grew heavy as the clouds overhead darkened. Kenma moved even closer to Tetsurou, the look on his face reading fear like an open book. Any words of encouragement Tetsurou could give him were drowned out by the clap of thunder in the distance, followed shortly by a stroke of lightening that illuminated the rounded pupils of Kenma's eyes and the gasp on his face. Like a spooked cat, Kenma's grip on him loosened as the boy turned and fled, deaf to Tetsurou's calls after him.

Tetsurou had never run so fast in his entire life. He felt his lunges squeeze in his chest and his breath escape in him in quick, shallow gasps. He lost count of the corners that he turned, lost track of where he was going. All that he knew was that he had to find him- he had to find Kenma. He had to.

And he did. He found him squatted underneath the the awnings of an abandoned shop. He was drawn in onto himself, legs brought up to his chest and his face buried in his knees. There was a quiver shaking his body, rocking his small frame and sinking fear into the very pits of Tetsurou's heart.

“Kenma,” he breathed, softly, not loud enough to be heard through the storm- though Kenma lifted his head anyways, peering at him with wide eyes and lips pulled into a tight, pursed line.

For a moment, Tetsurou just stood and stared at him. It was when another roll of thunder sounded in the sky that he lurched forward, going forward to where Kenma had jumped and curled even more onto himself, shaking as he covered his face.

“Kenma,” Tetsurou breathed, voice caught in his throat. He stooped down besides Kenma and wrapped his arms around him, covering his smaller body, shielding from the storm. They sat there together like that, Tetsurou murmuring ‘It’s okay, I’m here’ while Kenma shook and whimpered in his grip.

“Tetsurou.”

Hearing his name, Tetsurou reached forward, as if on a natural impulsive, and grabbed Kenma’s hand in his own. His palm was cold and clammy, and his fingers gently shook against the back of his hand. He swept the pad of his thumb gently over the knuckles of Kenma’s hand. Kenma gave a small squeeze.

“It’s okay, Kenma. I’m here, I’ll protect you. I promise that I’ll always protect you.”

Kenma gave his hand another squeeze.

Tetsurou presses his lips to Kenma’s temple. It’s chaste, and he feels the tension roll off of the smaller boy’s shoulders. They sit together and wait out the storm, Tetsurou quietly remarking about the earth worms and what they must be doing, about the cats and where they go when it rains, about the frogs and the croaks they hear in the distance.

When it ends, Kenma is smiling. They hold hands and Kuroo takes him home.

 

\---

Kenma Kozume and Tetsurou Kuroo became even more inseparable from that point on. They eat lunch together. They spend more time at each other's houses than their own. Kenma's mother and Kuroo's (he insists on going by that, now- Kenma calls him 'Kuro', as if to spite him) come to be good friends. Sometimes Kuroo's father laments how his mother spends more time to Kenma's mom than she does with him.

School is hard for Kenma. Not because he's bad at it academically, but because he has issues with the other children. He has issues being in large spaces with a lot of people. He has issues, says his mother, says his teachers, whispers children who are bigger and can look down upon him. Kuroo calls it anxiety. Kenma doesn't like labels.

They don't hold hands, but that doesn't bother Kuroo like it used to. He still wants to touch Kenma, but in different ways. He likes when the other settles across his legs when he's playing a video game, or brushes against his arm when they walk side by side in the hallways. Kenma wonders through this world like his feet are connected to the ground. Kuroo doesn't mind carrying him. He will carry him to the ends of the earth.

By no means, though, is Kenma Kozume a weak person. His brain works in ways that Kuroo is sure he would never be able to comprehend. Their conversations are surface level, but their connection is skin deep. He thinks that if Kenma were to open the curtains to his thoughts and let Kuroo in, wholly and completely, he would very well be swallowed alive.

Kuroo makes friends, plenty of them. But Kenma is his best friend. Kenma is the only one who matters, in the end.

\--

The first time someone asks him out, Kuroo is thirteen years old. It's his first school year without Kenma by his side, and he feels like he has had a layer of skin ripped from his body. He's survived junior high by blocking out the sun when other people try to look directly at him, casting shadows. He's built defenses by the skin of his teeth, because he feels wary of the world, feels different, though he can't figure out why.

He's approached by a girl who must be several years his senior at lunch one day, when he's standing underneath a tree in the court yard and spinning a volleyball between his hands. It's a small comfort, but it helps. A volleyball is a reminder of things that are stable, that are safe. They touch a part of him that feels real, true happiness, in the same way that evening naps in the sun lying next to Kenma do.

It's not a confession like the ones on television. The girl doesn't present him with a letter, printed with frilly cursive and wrapped in a white envelope. She doesn't bow and confess her love for him, nor does she blush and stammer.

She asks him if he knows her name. He doesn't. She introduces herself, though he doesn't remember the name a moment after she's said it.

She asks him if he wants to go out with her, clear and simple. She says that she'll give him time to think about it.

He doesn't need time to think about it. He says no.

Though it is the first time he tells a girl no, it will not be the last.

\---

Kenma gets into his Junior High. Kuroo is ecstatic- the first thing he does is try to convince Kenma to join the volleyball team with him. Kenma is adamant in his opposition, at first.

Kuroo thinks he's wearing him down, though.

Kenma bleaches his hair. He wears it down, because he says he likes to be able to cover his face. Kuroo thinks it's adorable- he's like a little dandelion.

Pieces of him might drift away in the wind, if you blow on him too hard.

\--

"I'm gay."

It's the first time that Kuroo has heard the word spoken aloud. He knows what it means- he's seen it written, absorbed the way in which it's used like an acronym for 'shitty' or 'lame'. He's read it's synonyms, words that feel like sludge dripping across his eyes when he repeats them in his brain. He knows what it means, even though no one talks about it, because everyone knows.

Kuroo stares at Kenma across the room. The look on Kenma's face is serious. Though his psp is in hand, it's slanted down so the glow of the screen casts light across the blankets of Kenma's bed and the underside of his chin, giving him a weary look. His eyes are hard, and Kuroo can not read them.

He swallows, trying to get rid of the sudden dryness in his throat.

"Oh?"

Kenma looks down, then. A shift in his rigid resolve. He's nervous, though Kuroo doesn't want him to be. He never wants to be the one to inspire anxiety in Kenma.

"I think that I am, at least. I don't like girls. I don't ever want to date one. Girls don't make me feel funny like boys do."

There’s something thick and warm coating the inside of Kuroo’s throat. He feels as if he can’t speak, he can only stare back at Kenma’s unwavering golden gaze. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to think. He’s not sure what’s causing the discomfort in his stomach or the feeling of bugs flitting underneath his skin.

Unconsciously, he scratches at his arm.

“Oh, I didn’t know. That’s cool.”

Kenma blinks at him slowly, asymmetrically, and the silence hangs heavy in the air. Then, as if the spell is broken, he turns his head back down to look at his psp, fingers resuming their endless tapping at the buttons on the side.

“Yeah.”

\--

Kuroo is different from the people around him. He is 14 and he can feel an uneasiness in his bones that he doesn’t understand. Like there is some sort of thickness in the air, some kind of heavy weather baring down on his body and he cannot escape it just by effort alone. He is stuck.

It’s not normal. He can’t find the needle that keeps pricking his skin, no matter how much he searches his body. There are no imperfections to be found. Maybe that is the problem- his outside appearance convinces people of a nature he does not really have. A cunning, mischievous, dark personality that is not his own. People spread rumors, he hears them talk. Mostly good things about him- he’s tall and he’s the best middle blocker on the volleyball team, he’s handsome, he’s going to go far.

These things are not necessarily untrue, but they do not define him. Kuroo likes academics- he doesn’t have the highest grades in his class, but he’s close. He likes classic literature; his favorites are C.S Lewis and Charlotte Brante. He likes watching bad American movies so that he can recite lines to Kenma in broken English. He like’s astrology. His star sign is Scorpio.

These things are immutable facts, they are part of who he is. He doesn’t have to think about them; he knows them to be true. So what, then, is missing? Why does he feel so out of place? Like he’s walking on train tracks, trying to keep his balance on the rails.

Sometimes he catches himself lingering in the locker room after practice and watching the way Tatsui Kido’s eyes light up when he laughs, how he gets little dimples next to his mouth when he smiles. Sometimes he gets caught up in watching the forms of his team as they chase after the ball, the hard red lines on their palms and the sweat that runs on their brow. It makes his palms itch.

It scares him.

\---

Kuroo throws himself into the game. His team is not great, but it’s not bad, either. That’s fine; he feels like he can do anything when the ball is in his hands, when he hears the screech of sneaker soles on gym floor, or yells of ‘nice receive!’ that reverberate off the walls. He feels like his blood is running hot underneath his skin, burning as it courses through his veins. He is the vessel, the sport is his blood, he is alive and on fire.

Kuroo drowns himself in volleyball, in his school work. He drowns himself in anything, anything at all, anything that will reach over his head even when he stands on the balls of his feet.

He and Kenma grow distant.

\---

“Why are you lying to yourself?”

“I’m not. You’re overthinking things.”

“You are. You do it every day. Maybe you can’t see it, but I can. You’re a coward, Kuro.”

“...”

“You have to come to terms with it some time. You can’t live like this.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“..I know.”

\---

It’s a secret.

It’s awkward and badly kept. It’s not easy, nor does it feel completely right. But it tastes of freedom and it burns a feeling of understanding in Kuroo’s chest that he can’t deny any more.

Kenma’s hand is sweaty in his own. He’s nervous- Kuroo is nervous, too. They sneak around like vagrants, ducking under the branches of trees or slipping into empty closets. Sometimes they find themselves on the rooftop and Kuroo tucks a strand of yellow hair behind small ears, though it is immediately swept back into dissaray by the wind.

There isn’t a word for it. They don’t need a name. Kenma doesn’t like labels- Kuroo isn’t ready for one.

Kenma has the pinkest lips that Kuroo has ever seen. He spends hours staring at them, hours twisting strands of Kenma’s hair between his fingers, hours breathing each other in and exhaling out their troubles.

They lay together in a sticky tangle of limbs, grass tickling their backs, breathing heavily from practice not long ago. Kenma points a cloud to him that looks like a Pokemon- Kuroo laughs and calls him his little nerd.

Kenma tastes like apples and cinnamon and Kuroo feels whole, for a little while.

\--

Rumors. They circulate and infect the student body like cancer. Hushed words in the classrooms that tear out throats of anyone that they target. A vicious apex predator that stalk the hallways and make even the strongest of heart feel fragile.

The word is that Kozume is a fag. Someone’s seen him holding hands with a guy down at the bus stop. Someone else says he keeps quiet because he’s watching guys in class and thinking about doing things with them. Disgusting things. Unnatural things.

Kozume is a disgusting fag, and Kuroo finds him sitting inside of the gym after hours with bruises running across his wrists and on his arms and Kenma doesn’t look him in the eye.

There’s nothing safe about this. There’s nothing freeing in the truth.

\--

“Kenma. Please. Talk to me.”

  
“Kitten. I’m worried about you. Please, pick up your phone?”

“Kenma, I know that you’re getting these. You never leave your phone somewhere for too long.” “Kenma, please. I miss you.”

“I miss what we had.”

\---

They break up.

It’s better this way.

Kuroo graduates. He’s off to High School- Nekoma, in Tokyo. Kenma smiles at him the day that school starts as they stand where the roads part and their paths diverge. He promises Kuroo that he will be alright. That they will be together again in just another year, and everything will be fine.

Kenma squeezes his hand one more time, and then lets go.

\--

Kenma Kozume is his first.... well. He doesn't like labels. 

Whatever they are, he isn't the last.

They never do hold hands again.

 

 

 

 


	2. The Last Time Being Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to prelude this chapter with two warnings; The first is that this chapter contains a brief description of the sexuality of a minor (a wet dream, particularly.) This part is easily skipped if you go from 'He wakes up' to "he wants this happiness to last." 
> 
> Secondly, I'd like to say that, while I do my best to remain as respectful as possible with my depiction of an autistic character, I myself am allistic. If you feel like the way I write this character is in any way disrespectful or inaccurate, please do not hesitate to let me know. I apologize profusely if this is the case.

_Mama, come here_

_Approach, appear_

_Daddy, I'm alone_

_'Cause this house don't feel like home_

[-Unsteady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjryf8zH_M)

\----

 

The last time Koutarou Bokuto saw his father, he was six years old. He was standing the drive way, holding a teddy bear in one hand and the air between his fisted fingers in the other. His mother was crying. His father looked angrier than Koutarou had ever seen him. The veins on the back of his clenched fists were bright and red and there was a sheen on his face. Words were flying through the air, the back and forth between his parents loud enough that it was attracting nervous gazes from the neighbors. Koutarou could see them peering through their windows.

Koutarou had never been good at Japanese. He learned to speak late- he must have been 1 and a half, maybe- and when he had it had been slow. There were times when the words came out jumbled because he didn’t properly think them out before he spoke. Koutarou rushed into everything, but learning was a slow process for him.

He couldn’t make sense of the conversation going on. The Japanese was too fast. Too loud. Too full of emotion. Koutarou wanted to sit down on the ground and cover his ears, like he did when things got to be too much for him. Loud, sharp, hard to breath right.

Koutarou doesn’t see it, but he hears the sound of the car door slamming. He’s too busy staring at the ground, trying to memorize the shape of his shoes. He hears his mother screaming as the car engine revs and pulls out of the drive way. He looks up just in time to see his father speeding away down the road.

He never comes home.

\---

Koutarou’s mother says that he was a very odd child. He had issues with expressions, with body language, with everything she thought should be normal. She says that as if he’s grown out of it, though Koutarou sometimes still feels like his mother talks down to him. Like other children don’t understand him, that they go out of their way to avoid him. Does he still have issues with his expressions? Does he make weird faces?

Koutarou feels very self conscious.

The mirror becomes his friend. He spends hours in front of it, praticing expressions. Smiling wide and then pulling his mouth into his frown until his lips ached and his eyebrows pushed together with frustration. He didn’t understand.

Koutarou’s mother says a lot of things that hurt.

She calls him stupid. She calls him useless. She says that he’s the reason that his father left.

She says them with a weird pronunciation, like her tongue isn’t quite rolling right in her mouth, and her hands shake as she holds a bottle in one and a half-empty glass in the other. Koutarou doesn’t know the name for what she’s drinking, but he knows that he tried it once and it made him feel dizzy. Dizzy, unable to be in control of his body and he’d panicked and sat in the corner desperately waiting for the pounding of his head to pass.

There are days where his mother seems whole again. Happy. Her smile is blinding and she gets little lines around her eyes. She holds him in her arms and sings to him, rocks him gently, tells him that he’s her little man.

There are days when the expression on her face is hollow. Days when she comes home from work and slumps on the kitchen table, leaves empty cans and bottles over the kitchen floor. Koutarou learns how to feed himself. He burns his hand one time and it hurts, it hurts it hurts and he cries but there is no one around who can hear him.

He counts the days since his dad first left. He makes cards, writes letters, and puts them all in a little box in his room. The day will come when he will send them, when he’s old enough to walk down to the post station and mail them himself. He collects stamps, perhaps a bit obsessively- he likes the ones with bright, vibrant colors, especially if they have birds on them.

\---

Koutarou turns eight, and he stops writing letters.

\---

“Koutarou-kun is struggling in school, Bokuto-san. He has issues with his work, and is failing in many aspects to grasp the material given to him, in all areas except for math. His mathmatics are exceptional. I’ve never met a student so advanced in one subject of expertise and not in others.

“However much I am concerned about his academics, my main concern lies in his social situation. I don’t believe that he has any friends. The other students don’t like him. They complain about the fact that he throws tantrums at seemingly random times, and that he is too loud and doesn’t know how to regulate his volume. Koutarou-kun often sits by himself in the corner and rocks back and forth, or arranges and then rearranges books on the shelf, or play blocks. He is not socially stimulated, and he will surely fail to become adjusted to being around people if this behavior continues. “

\---

Making friends is _hard_. Koutarou feels alone in a room full of people. Isolated. The other children make it clear that their ostracization is purposeful, and not just situational, or a mistake. He hears his name in hushed whispers, and sometimes he has to leave the room because his breathing feels too fast, and his head pounds.

Koutarou likes learning. He has issues with it, but by no means is he bad at it. It’s the work that puzzles him- it all seems jumbled together and puts his mind in a twist. He can’t do the work, so his teacher thinks that he is lazy. She says that he has a learning disability.

It’s just one more thing that makes Koutarou feel different.

Koutarou likes learning, but he starts to dislike school. He starts to hate it. But he is firm in his resolve that he must go anyway. He can’t disappoint his mom, or she’ll never love him again.

\---

The last time Koutarou let someone talk down to him was the first time that he got into a fight.

He didn’t mean to. It wasn’t his intent. It just kind of happened.

He was sitting underneath the tree in the playground when a group of boys approached him, interrupting the drawing he was making in the dirt. His gaze shifted, but he didn’t look up at them; he could recognize them by their shoes, the same worn, dirty sneakers they wore every day. Three pairs, three people. Terrorizers of his daily life.

The boys call him stupid. They call him an idiot, a weirdo, a loser. Loser, loser, loser. Koutarou hears their croaky laughs and the more hears than feels the way they kick dirt in his direction. They want to sit where he’s sitting- but there’s plenty of trees on this playground, he thinks, doesn’t say- and he has to move. This is there spot. This, the place where he sits every day.

The feeling in his stomach was the same static pain that he got when his feet fell asleep underneath him, or when his head pounded after hitting it against the wall. He never looks up at their faces. He knows if he does, he will engrave them in his memory, the permanent visual of three owls looking down on a terrified mouse. More so than terrified, he felt tired. He lifted his hands to cover his ears.

Hands on his wrists, keeping him from moving his hands. Dark eyes in his face, peering at him like malicious serpentine gaze, and Koutarou doesn’t really remember what happens but he knows that that suddenly his forehead stings and there are tears in the corners of his eyes and the shaking child, who’s shirt is balled in his fists, is crying. His entourage is no where to be seen. Koutarou let’s go immediately, horror bubbling thick in his throat, threatening to suffocate him. There are tears and bruises and he hears a teacher yelling somewhere not far away, but the deed has been done. The blood on his hands cannot be washed away.

He glances down at his palms, which are red from digging his nails too hard into his skin. He curls his fingers, like talons, slowly curling and un-curling the chubby digits.

That day, Koutarou stops being the prey, and becomes the owl.

\---

The accounts against him are all outrageously over-exaggerated. All three of his bullies claim that they saw him shove the boy down into the dirt and begin to wail on him. He’s lucky to have gotten away with just a bruise from the head butt, they say.

Bokuto is marked as a troublemaker. He is a danger, a hazard. Bokuto get’s kicked out of school and the drive home is so thick with silence that it’s permeable, and he wants to poke holes in it just to let himself breathe.

Prepared for the oncoming storm, he is surprised when it never comes. In fact, Bokuto’s mother doesn’t speak to him of it at all. She makes dinner, silent, cleans up, silent, goes to bed, quiet. Bokuto can hear her crying through the paper thin walls.

Bokuto starts to hate the sound of his mother crying. He starts to hate everything that’s ever made her cry. He hates his father, he hates stressful days at work and slow traffic, he hates the bruises that form on her wrists when she goes out on Friday nights.

He hates himself the most of all.

\---

Sage green walls. Colorful toys stuffed into a bin in the corner; a bean bag chair in the opposite one, and inspirational quotes written in fancy cursive letters on the walls. A desk, a desktop computer, a large, spindly chair and an equally spindly woman draped over it’s arm.

She sits with steepled fingers, a smile painted on her lips as thickly as her bright red lipstick, which drips across Bokuto’s field of vision like blood pricked from her barbwire tongue. She smiles, but the tone in the air is grim. Bokuto sits opposite his mother, several feet and a table top separating the chairs they sit in, and the tick of the clock digs underneath his skin and makes him want to run, run, run. Get away.

The school had told them about this, a parting suggestion before they shut the door in their faces. A Psychiatrist. Bokuto’s mother said it with pursed lips, with the infliction of a dirty word. Though he wouldn’t realize it at the time, in later years, he thought back to that day and thought that perhaps his mother was just afraid she would be told that all of Bokuto’s problems were her fault.

It weighed heavy on his shoulders. A little less scary than just ‘different’, because it had an actual label, but it was still just as thick in his throat. He couldn’t swallow it. Three weeks of psychiatrists visits, and he was the autistic kid, he was sitting in his room and banging his forehead on the wall and sobbing because this made so much sense from the countless websites he read about it but oh, god, it didn’t make things any better. He was a rock in a raging river, sinking to the bottom and eroding with the pass of the tide.

\---

Middle School starts out the same way as his school life has been for the past few years. The academics are hard, not because Bokuto struggles with understanding but because his ability to concentrate has seemingly disappeared altogether. The kids are the same, only even crueler, which Bokuto didn’t think was humanly possible. He is thick for his age- broad at the shoulders and with big hands- and he is an outcast, he is the pariah of his classes. Bokuto sits in the back and plays with his hands and stares out the window while the hours drag by.

The first time he holds a volleyball in his hands is several weeks into school, during gym class one day. He is immediately drawn to the feeling of the weight sitting in his hands, the way the ball seems to float when he spins it. He watches his teacher spike a ball into the air with wide eyes.

This is the first time that Bokuto falls in love with something, though it will not be the last.

\---

He’s good. No- he’s great. He’s a natural, or so they say. He doesn’t have to seek out the volleyball team because the captain comes to him. For once, he is welcome into something with open arms.

At first he’s nervous. He feels the cold sweat on his neck when he looks around the gymnasium at the other boys, similarly dressed in loose t-shirts and shorts. His ‘teammates’. He’s never had a teammate before. Some of these boys are people who have mocked him by his band, spoken in hushed whispers about him. His fingers tremble and he wants to leave, he doesn’t want to do this. He just wants to play volleyball.

On the court, there is no alienation. The same boys who scowled in his direction flash him smiles when they see the power with which he drives the ball over the net. They are patient with him as they teach him the rules, though Bokuto has researched it already. He’s spent hours at home, sitting at his computer and looking up how the sport works.

Something changes. Something is different. In the court, Bokuto is not the quiet boy at the back of the classroom, who can’t control his volume and shakes sometimes without noticing. He is not too big or too clumsy. He is not the subject of giggles and languid glances.

On the court, Bokuto is Bokuto. Bokuto can be himself, and people respect him.

With the ball in his hand, there is fire in his veins, and he feels alive. He feels as if his soul travels through his feet and and through his hands and he has grown wings, he can fly. For once in his life, when he gushes on and on about volleyball, people nod their heads and listen. His teammates feel it, too. They look at him with eyes of understanding.

He has bruised knees and bags under his eyes from prolonged practices, from going home to toss the ball until well after dark. He has blisters on his feet and calluses developing on his finger tips and he is learning how to smile again.

  
\---

Akaashi Keiji is quiet. He is a dark specter that drifts the hallways, unnoticed- and he’s fine with things being that way. Or, so he seems, from what Bokuto can tell. Akaashi Keiji has black hair that curls on his forehead and behind his ears, and dark eyes that remind Bokuto of obsidian, that pretty black gemstone he learned about in Earth Science. Or, when the light catches them, sometimes they remind him of tektite.

Bokuto is fairly certain that Akaashi doesn’t like him. The look on his face is a constant state of being impassive, and he can never tell what’s going through his mind. Pensive. Quiet. Akaashi Keiji is everything that frustrates him, everything he doesn’t understand how to handle. Akaashi Keiji is in some of his classes, because he’s smart, even though he’s a year younger- Akaashi Keiji is on his volleyball team, and he’s good, even though Bokuto never gets a chance to play with him.

Not at first.

Not until the day when the team's setter is home sick, and Akaashi is told to set for him. He's got long fingers that gently touch the ball, sending it in a perfect arch through the air. His toes leave the ground when he sets; Akaashi takes flight.

Bokuto hits his ball perfectly. It hits the ground with more force than any ball he's ever hit before. The team is stunned into silence, and Akaashi looks at him with sweat across his brow and he smiles.

\---

 

Akaashi Keiji has the prettiest smile that Bokuto has ever seen.

\---

He wakes up for school the next day with his sheets haphazardly strewn and his boxers clinging uncomfortably to his body. There’s dried flecks of white on his skin and he feels like he’s overheating, like there’s a fire broiling in his stomach. Flashes of dreams past dance across his eyes. The feeling of a ball against his palm. The feeling of hands on the outsides of his thighs. Obsidian and a smile.

He’s so confused. His eyelids flutter against his cheek as he blinks up at the ceiling. He gets up and strips his sheets, strips his mattress pad and washes his clothes and takes a shower so hot that it leaves his skin red. He’s confused, he thinks about Akaashi when he eats his breakfast, he thinks about Akaashi on the bus and he thinks about Akaashi and knows that Akaashi is a boy and he needs to stop thinking about him.

He wants this happiness to last.

He won’t think about it.

\---

Happiness is like goo, Bokuto thinks. It’s fun to play with- it’s stick in between your fingers and the color is bright and it makes you smile, it takes away the worry of everything else around you, if only for a little while. But over time it will begin to deliquesce, and seep down from your palm, between your thumb and pointer and forefinger. It will ebb and become a mess and Bokuto, for all that some might think to the contrary, is religious in his efforts to keep as cleanly as possible.

If he wants to stay happy, he has to become like the happy people that he sees around him. The confident people. People with chests puffed out and shoulders squared. People who fire in their eyes and the air of a sovereign. Confidence doesn’t come over night, Bokuto learns; so he practices.

He plants himself in front of the mirror for hours, and carves an image of normality into himself. Squares his shoulders, sucks in his stomach, lifts his chin up high. Bokuto learns how to love the him that’s in the mirror, no matter how difficult it is to love the him that’s in the flesh. If he can love what other people see, then he can pretend, at least. He sits for hours and stills the fidgeting of his fingers, catches any time he catches himself rocking or repeating a phrase too many times. He won’t do it in public. He can’t do it any more, if he wants to keep the happiness solid in his hands.

Bokuto paints himself a picture of confidence, pride and happiness. It’s unstable and it crumbles at the tiniest of provocations, but it serves his purposes well enough. People start to look at him less. He is still an odd light in a starless sky, but this time, he shines brightly.

He bleaches strips of his hair white so he looks like an owl and jells spikes into landing strips, ready for when he’s going to take flight.

\---

 

The apparition of himself that Bokuto makes for the outside world is not solid. But it will have to do.

\---

It’s still hard to look at Akaashi Keiji’s smile without squinting. In the summer he wears sunglasses. He tells joke after joke until they both double over with laughter, (Akaashi’s laugh sounds like bird song) and buys Akaashi ice cream; he hopes that it won’t melt by sheer proximity to the sun.

\---

Akaashi Keiji is earth, unrelenting snow fall and the clouds on a rainy day. Bokuto thinks of himself as pollution, the smell of rubber burning on hot days, and the sound of hail on patio umbrella tops.

Akaashi sits with him outside on the last day of his second year and tells Bokuto that he is a comet streaking across the sky.

\---

He crashes and he burns.

It’s his third year of middle school and Bokuto Koutarou feels half of the time that he can take on the world, and half of the time that he’s one of the empty bottles that litters his apartment floor. Long ago they lost the house, and long ago his mother stopped caring about the wine stains on the carpet, the smell of sake that permeated the air and clung to their clothing.

But he’s surviving, and that’s what matters. People admire his skill. People think he can be of use to them. People tolerate and tolerate and then there’s Akaashi, who gives Bokuto a kind of feeling in his chest that he’s never had before.

Something a little warm, a little fuzzy. Akaashi asks him if he’s had enough to eat when his lunch is small; Akaashi watches birds with him after school and listens when he tells him all about the species; Akaashi stands with him in the bathroom when he needs to splash water on his face to calm down when the hallways are too loud and the people too close.

Akaashi smiles for Bokuto like he doesn’t smile for anyone else, and Bokuto thinks that he is falling, falling, falling down.

\---

He’s happy, and he won’t think about it.

\---

He kisses him.

In his bedroom, sitting indian style on his bed, with his head clasped between too-large, too-calloused hands.

Bokuto kisses him because the soles of his shoes fell away on the walk to Akaashi’s house but his mom still let Bokuto put his sneakers neatly by the door. He kisses him because Akaashi’s living room smells like pine and his younger sister talks as quietly as a mouse and offers Bokuto a piece of mocchi (he takes it). He kisses him because dinner is served around a kotatsu where all four Akaashi’s (Keiji, his mom, his sister, his father) gather around and say prayer.

He kisses him because Akaashi Keiji is a home, and he’s so desperately in love with him.

Akaashi Keiji is a home, and just like a home, he places firm hands on Bokuto’s shoulders and pushes him away. His face is twisted with remorse, with pain, with confusion.

He says that he can’t, that he doesn’t feel that way, but all Bokuto hears is ‘not with you- not ever.’

Bokuto slams the door on his way out and doesn’t look back.

\---

A day turns into two. Two turns into four, four into eight- well, Bokuto never did learn all of his multiplication’s table, but the pattern goes on in a similar way. The days marked down since he’s last been to school. The days since he’s picked up a call from Akaashi are less, but not few.

He’s terrified.

\---

He makes the mistake of talking to his mom about his problems. It’s the last time that he does.

She screams. She has anger contorting her face and fear in her eyes when she tells him to knock this shit off. That he's a mess (a god damn failurer) that he isn't gay (he can't be, he's lying) and that he's doing all this for attention (high maintence, burden, burden, burden). She yells for what feels like hours and Bokuto's almost too tired to cry even though he feels the sting of it in his eyes.

It's a long time before she calms down enough to lower her voice to a tense growl. She tells him that he's been offered a sports scholarship for one of the most well known schools in the region. Fully paid, they want him. They want him on their team.

It's not the first time someone wants him, and it certainly isn't the last.

\---

Bokuto gets his shit together. He goes to school the next day, determined not to think about it. He made a mistake (he was a mistake) and he won't think about it.

He sees Akaashi standing outside of the school, under a willow tree. Waiting for him. Bokuto swallows thickly, flakes of rust falling away from his hollow, worn out chest and he strides forward.

(His footsteps are loud. Akaashi is quiet.)

Akaashi smiles at him and softly says “Welcome back, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto smiles, too. This is fine.

It had been a mistake, and they won’t think about it. Their friendship will survive this, and so will they.

  
That day he goes home, his mother tells him that he’s going to be just fine.

That they’ll be just fine.

\----

  
(Markedly, this is the last day Bokuto remembers his house feeling like a home.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you enjoy my writing and want to say hi, have any questions/suggestions or fics you'd like to see, or just want to scream about bokuroo with me, check my tumblr out (main tumblr- teethtalk. fandom reblog tumblr- tesmi)


End file.
